Fairy Tales (1978)

the audience applauded

Please don't spend money on this.

Memorable, crazy movie

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

I was on-line earlier and started thinking of those fairy tales books from school. They were the 1st books you READ after clearing flash-cards. Anyway, having lots if 'search' words I went on Google. 3rd entry was this film Fairy Tales. Briefly, I saw what it was about, sniggered then decided to write this review. PS If you have seen this film & recommend it, let me know.Thanks.

Charles Band strikes gloriously ridiculous schlock movie fool's gold with this giddy, bawdy, cheerfully lewd, crude and rude vaudeville revue-style soft-core sex musical comedy send-up of beloved Mother Goose nursery rhyme characters who are tossed smack dab into the middle of a gratuitous nudity-packed, sex-ridden, scuzzy pun-laden low-budget nice'n'naughty goofathon loaded with wink-wink, nudge-nudge hammy acting, pretty girls frequently shedding their scanty apparel, cheesy Cole Porter-type song-and-dance numbers, leering double entendres, grotesquely drawn black, homosexual and sexually deviant characters, semi-explicit simulated sex, dirty jokes about erections and voyeurism, and an ingratiatingly good-natured sense of aim-for-the-groin lowbrow high school locker room humor.A jaded prince (pudgey, homely, acne-scarred dork Don Sparks), rendered impotent by having made love to too many castle babes, has to immediately find that certain special fair maiden who will arouse him in order to produce an heir and rightfully assume his natural role as king. So Prince Plug-Ugly Clod goes roving the countryside in search of his elusive alluring queen and has bizarre encounters with a motley assortment of mugging, freaked-out, libidinous oddballs. The Little Old Woman Who Lives in a Shoe (vampy Brenda Fogarty) is the madam of a bordello. "Repo Man" 's Sy Richardson, carrying on like he's in a way soulful blaxploitation picture, does his flippy jive-a** thing as Sirus, a preening, flamboyant pimp with an over-sized bright red codpiece. "Professor" Irwin Corey contributes a typically over-the-top turn as a manic, wheezing, profanity-spewing sex expert doctor. Snow White (luscious dish Annie Gaybis) participates in lively group sex with the lascivious seven dwarfs. Little Bo Peep (gorgeous buxom blonde honey Angela Aames) not only loses her sheep, but also her clothes as she squeaks out a dreadful tune in a grating, high-pitched adenoidal voice before falling out of her flimsy dress and revealing her bountiful breasts. Cuddly unclad imp Lindsay Freeman pops up as the insatiable Jill, who can't get mincing gay Jack to make love to her.Robert Staats as gabby smarmy doorman Little Tommy Tucker, Angelo Rossitto as a lecherous midget lawman, and Bob Leslie as randy Old King Cole devour the cheap forest scenery with lip-smacking uninhibited aplomb. Juicy Ida Tripoldi fails to turn on the prince as a delicious naked chick birthday present. Delectably voluptuous belly dancer Nai Bonet shakes her fleshy, undulating body and pours glistening oil on her shapely buttocks while shaking it to a grinding disco beat. Marita Ditmar and future "Dallas" cast member Evelyn Guerrero, wearing just leather S&M masks, engage in an absurdly campy dungeon-set chains'n'whips "beat me because it feels so good" number. A fresh out of high school Linnea Quigley, looking incredibly cute and prior to her substantial 80's scream queen fame, gets the prince's motor running as the yummy, untainted Sleeping Beauty.Director Harry Tampa, working from a gleefully coarse, filthy-minded, resolutely vulgar and unsophisticated script by Frank Ray Perilli and Franne Schacht (they also wrote "Laserblast" for Band), keeps the tone unremittingly smutty, yet light-hearted throughout, while cinematographer Daniel Pearl blinds the audience with lots of chintzy vertical wipes and dissolves and composer Andrew Belling and lyricist Lee Arries deliver the dopey goods with such choice sleazy songs as "Been A Virgin Too Long" and a kinky bondage-and-discipline-themed variant on the classic rhythm-and-blues ditty "Beat Me Daddy Eight to the Bar." Trandscendently tacky stuff.

This 'erotic fairy tale' film rehashes similar plotlines from earlier films, most notably "Cinderella," with the premise of an impotent prince looking for a woman who can excite him. Since all of the 'good' material had been taken by earlier films, "Fairy Tales" pulls from many sources, from nursery rhymes like 'Little Bo Peep' and 'Jack and Jill,' to tales like "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" and even a cameo by "Little Red Riding Hood."By jumping around so much, this film keeps your interest. It's fairly humorous and the T&A is harmless. Tommy Tucker's brothel-barker character is the most successful as he beckons passersby to enter 'the big shoe,' assuring that what they do there is "nobody's business but your own."Where this film loses steam is in the penultimate song sequence, identical to the one in "Cinderella," in which the cast sings the praises of Sleeping Beauty's virtues. Whereas in "Cinderella" the song refers to Cinderella's particular sexual expertise; here Sleeping Beauty's claim to fame is that she's a virgin. And comatose to boot. The prince, King Cole, and the Frog Prince (for whom i felt most sorry in that his plight could have been halted by a simple kiss from a virgin), despite the endless parade of literary babes, all desire Sleeping Beauty because she's never had sex. This sudden assertion of moral purity seems out of place and sort of disgusting in the light of the supposed sexual freedoms of this fantasy world. It brings a strangely didactic tone to this otherwise if-it-feels-good-do-it spectacle.

I fell in love with this "soft porn" turn at first viewing. It could have been just another slipshod "peepshow" as is the case of most T&A features. Instead, Hurwitz and Perilli decided that anything worth doing is worth doing well. The music is absolutely splendid and memorable and wickedly tongue-in-cheek (I am quite partial to "Beat Him Daddy A to the Bar" and "Little Bo Peep". All of the characters are well realized and fleshed out (so to speak) given the genre. Being an actor myself, I can tell when performers are having fun with their roles...a mainstay of successful comedy. They seem to have been having a blast. Anyone who can get through Tommy Tucker's (Robert Staats)scenes without a hearty belly-laugh (to say the least) is likely dead, humorless, or made of stone. Well done all around. I give it a "10". Highly recommended.